On March 2 at about 8:45 a.m. in West Springfield, Massachusetts a driver of a car drove into a pedestrian, killing the pedestrian. “This is at least the eleventh pedestrian who has been hit and killed by a driver in Massachusetts already this year,” Brendan Kearney told the Valley Post. He works for a group that has a web site at https://walkboston.org. Despite the group's name, Walk Boston works statewide. “We need to reduce illegal speeding to help prevent and/or reduce the severity of these crashes, and a way to do that is through road design,” Kearney said.

The city of West Springfield borders Springfield. The cities are separated by the Connecticut river.

Kearney continued by e-mail, “After bringing up Google Street View (for the crash site, near 1290 Riverdale Street), it does not look like a place that is very welcoming for people walking or biking -- a long straight divided highway with two lanes in each direction. It looks like there are bus stops on both sides of this road, but there are no crosswalks nearby. There is a crosswalk about 0.8 miles in one direction, and close to half a mile in the other direction. How is a person taking the bus each direction supposed to safely get where they are going? (Street View is from August 2018, not sure if crosswalks have been added since).”

Bike-ped advocacy groups in Vermont and New Hampshire have web sites at www.LocalMotion.org and www.bwaNH.org.

In other news from the Valley, in Southampton, Massachusetts, on February 28, the town bought 85 acres of farmland and wilderness to protect the land from development. Southampton borders Holyoke. The Kestrel Land Trust helped arrange the deal.

In other news from the Valley, in Keene, every Saturday morning from 11 a.m. until noon, there is a peace vigil at Central Square. This happens regardless of the weather. Details are at:

www.keenepeacevigil.org/about-us.html

With 4 percent of the world's population, the USA spends at much on the military as the rest of the world combined.